Monthly Archives: July 2013

How NSA leaks are changing minds among the public—and in Congress – The Congressional action comes as evidence of a major shift in public opinion grows. Data out from a new Pew Research poll shows that 50 percent of the public approves of the government’s collection of phone and internet data, while 44 percent disapprove. Those numbers are little changed from a month ago, when 48 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved. However, when asked about whether the programs may be going too far in restricting civil liberties, responses differed sharply from three years ago. In 2010, 32 percent of Americans said anti-terrorism programs had “gone too far in restricting civil liberties.” This month, 47 percent believed that.

DIY website tools for SMBs – For owners and operators of SMBs, these online tools will help you improve your web presence on a smaller budget in areas including e-commerce, marketing, and web development.

There’s no vacation from fitness: Apps and gear for exercising anywhere – Working out on the go doesn’t have to be difficult, however, and the recent boom of fitness tech devices has made it even easier. We’ve found some of the simplest gadgets, apps, and Web services to help you stay fit and on track, whether you’re in the air, on the ground, or flitting from city to city.

Security:

UK the ‘number 1 target’ of online gangsters in 25 countries – e-crime report – Committee Chair, Keith Vaz MP said: “We are not winning the war on online criminal activity. We are being too complacent about these e-wars because the victims are hidden in cyberspace.” He added: “You can steal more on the internet than you can by robbing a bank and online criminals in 25 countries have chosen the UK as their number one target. Astonishingly, some are operating from EU countries.

The Pwn Plug R2 is a miniature NSA, ready to exploit networks for their own good – The new Pwn Plug looks less like a DC power supply plug—the form factor of its predecessor—and more like a small Wi-Fi access point or router. But inside, it’s really a Linux-powered NSA-in-a-box, providing white hat hackers and corporate network security professionals a “drop box” system that can be remotely controlled over a covert Internet channel or a cellular data connection.

Tampering with a car’s brakes and speed by hacking its computers: A new how-to – Later this week at the Defcon hacker conference, researchers plan to demonstrate an arsenal of attacks that can be performed on two popular automobiles: a Toyota Prius and a Ford Escape, both 2010 models. Starting with the premise that it’s possible to infect one or more of the ECUs remotely and cause them to send instructions to other nodes, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek have developed a series of attacks that can carry out a range of scary scenarios. The researchers work for Twitter and security firm IOActive respectively.

Home automation systems rife with holes, security experts say – A variety of network-controlled home automation devices lack basic security controls, making it possible for attackers to access their sensitive functions, often from the Internet, according to researchers from security firm Trustwave. Some of these devices are used to control door locks, surveillance cameras, alarm systems, lights and other sensitive systems.

Spoofed! Fake GPS signals lead yacht astray – Researchers in the U.S. have managed to spoof GPS (Global Positioning System) signals to send a yacht hundreds of meters off course, while fooling the crew into thinking the yacht was remaining perfectly on course. The test, conducted last month off the coast of Italy, is one of the most sophisticated ever reported against GPS and represents several years of work by the team at the University of Texas at Austin.

Company News:

Samsung caught rigging phones to boost benchmark results – Samsung has been adding code that boosts CPU and GPU clock speeds when benchmarking apps are run. Whatever is going on here, though, it’s clear that benchmarks really aren’t to be trusted on mobile hardware any more than they are on traditional computers.

Microsoft lobs second Windows 8.1 preview at enterprise IT admins – Microsoft on Tuesday announced a second preview, this one with new features targeting larger IT departments. “Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview builds on the Window 8.1 Preview which is currently available, adding premium features designed to address mobility, security, management and virtualization needs of today’s enterprise,” Windows marketing manager Erwin Visser said in a blog post.

Intel web TV spy camera plans axed – Intel has dropped controversial plans to outfit its upcoming web TV set-top box with a face-recognition camera, admitting that a combination of privacy concerns and performance issues forced its hand. The original goal had been to use a combination of age, gender, and other identification features to track viewers of the web TV service and tailor advertising to suit; however, Intel’s web TV chief Erik Huggers told the WSJ, that’s now been abandoned, at least in the first-gen box.

Surface tablet revenue just $853m Microsoft reveals – Microsoft made $853m in revenue from Surface tablets in its 2013 fiscal year, a disappointing figure that failed to even cover the company’s $900m inventory adjustment charge for the poorly selling Surface RT. The figures, confirmed in Microsoft’s most recent 10K filing, paint an underwhelming picture of the Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets, though doesn’t specify exactly how many units have been sold.

Starbucks starts embedding wireless charging mats in its tables – It’s not uncommon to see people sitting in Starbucks sipping their coffee while typing on a laptop, tapping a tablet, or using their phone. The coffee shop chain has embraced such gadgets by providing free WiFi and even power outlets to keep your battery topped up. And that trend is being continued as Starbucks has decided to embrace wireless charging.

Games and Entertainment:

Facebook offers promotional help to small game developers – The new pilot program, called Facebook Mobile Games Publishing, will assist selected game development shops in marketing and deploying their games on Facebook mobile clients, in exchange for an unspecified percentage of the revenue that the Facebook versions of these games generate.

NVIDIA SHIELD review – Delivered in NVIDIA SHIELD is the first full-fledged mobile device crossover into the desktop gaming universe. SHIELD is an Android-based physical gaming controller with its own clamshell hinge-attached display, powered by NVIDIA’s newest mobile processor, stepping up as what the company claims is the world’s most powerful mobile gaming device.

Capcom Essentials pack leaks, bundles five PS3 games for just $60 – On October 8 Capcom is set to offer PS3 owners a pretty sweet deal in the form of the Capcom Essentials game pack. Unfortunately, Capcom hasn’t been able to officially announce the pack themselves as EB Games Canada has jumped the gun and listed it on their website.

The next BioShock Infinite DLC, Burial at Sea, takes us back to Rapture – Set on New Year’s Eve 1958, Burial at Sea features Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth in their own two-part detective story set in Rapture. Yes, 1958 is a year before the city began to fall apart, so we’ll get to see Rapture in its (presumed) functional glory — something series fans wanted in full ever since the first BioShock.

Off Topic (Sort of):

13 Remote-Control Aerial Tours of Abandoned Places – The influx of relatively inexpensive, remotely-controlled flying machines sporting high-definition video cameras has meant that long-forgotten locales can be explored more easily and less dangerously than in the past.

Jetpack man soars over U.S. alongside B-17 bomber – Jetman, as Rossy is known, appeared alongside a vintage B-17 bomber at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wis., in his first public flight in the U.S. He flew in formation with the bomber, coming within several feet of the fuselage, before parachuting to a safe landing. Jetman has been thrilling crowds and aviators around the world with his custom-made jet suit, zooming across the English Channel in 2008.

First Open Source Airplane Could Cost Just $15,000 – The goal of Maker Plane is to develop a small, two-seat airplane that qualifies as a light sport aircraft and is affordable, safe, and easy to fly. But unlike other home-built aircraft, where companies or individuals charge for their plans or kits, Maker Plane will give its design away for free.The group behind the project consists of pilots and engineers who are designing the airplane, allowing it to be built using the kind of personal manufacturing equipment

Something to think about:

“Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”

PRISM: 50% of Americans approve of NSA’s internet spying program – According to data from the Pew Research Center, 50% of Americans approve of their government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts. The research was conducted by Pew between July 17 – 21, just six weeks after Edward Snowden blew the whistle on PRISM – the US government’s omnipresent internet spying initiative. This apparent approval by a slim majority of Americans (50% approve and 44% disapprove) is all the more surprising given what else the survey has to tell us.

Google Translate website now supports handwriting – Google Translate, which has successfully swept away its predecessors and competitors to become the standard in online translation, has a new feature: handwriting translation. It’s a feature that’s actually been available on their Android app for almost two years, but finally it’s coming to the website version as well.

Five bookmarks every computer user should have – Whether you’ve just purchased a new PC or you’ve been using the same one for years, chances are good that at some point, you’re going to need help and/or information. That’s why I’ve prepared this list of handy destinations you’ll want to keep bookmarked in your browser. Because when the time comes, you’ll be glad to have them at your fingertips.

How to put your DVD library in the cloud – To turn a real-world DVD into a digital file that you can stream to the viewing platform of your choice, you have to rip it from the disc. As with ripping CDs, you’ll copy the contents of a DVD to your computer, and then convert those contents to a cloud-friendly format. In order for this to work, obviously, you must have access to a PC with a DVD drive.

LibreOffice – When it comes to creating documents, spreadsheets, databases, and presentations, MS Office is the suite that comes to mind. But let’s face it: Office is a pricey piece of software. Thankfully, there are cheaper alternatives out there, but they don’t always live up to their promise. LibreOffice offers up a free alternative, and we found it on par with its more popular competitor.

Dell’s Project Ophelia could be more bad news for PCs – Dell’s Android PC-on-a-stick threatens the relevance of traditional PCs from a different angle. The device is about the size of a large USB thumb drive. Instead of just flash-based storage, though, Project Ophelia packs a Rockchip RK3066 processor and 1GB of RAM, as well as both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity into that small space. It also has a microSD card slot to add additional storage if necessary.

10 innovations that can save money for small businesses – Innovation drives technology forward, making the business world run more smoothly and providing ways to save money. No business knows this more than the small business. Without the kind of cost savings innovation brings, many of them would close their doors for good. Here are some specific ways technical innovation is helping smaller businesses thrive.

Tablet storage: Do you really need an expansion slot? – The simple answer depends on a user’s personal preference. Sometimes the way storage is handled on a tablet is just another item on a lengthy checklist of important features, including screen size and resolution, processing power and price. But there’s also a more detailed answer that highlights a tug of war going on behind the scenes between prominent tablet vendors.

Introduction to backup – Not backing up is like not wearing a seatbelt. You can go months or even years without a problem, then disaster strikes and you’re in serious trouble. Only a few hours before writing this article, I received an email from a reader who couldn’t access his hard drive, which contained files vital to his business. His letter didn’t even include the word backup.

Google Play store plagued by short-lived scam apps, says Symantec – A steady stream of questionable applications is flowing daily into Google’s Play store for Android devices, according to security vendor Symantec. Over the last seven months, Symantec found more than 1,200 suspicious applications in the Play store. Google removes many shortly after they’re published, but others stay in the store for a few days.

NASA falls short on its cloud computing security – As the space agency increasingly moves more data to the cloud, a new report says it hasn’t met proper security requirements and “potentially put NASA systems and data stored in the cloud at risk.”

Zynga reportedly had three top executives resign in July – Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Don Mattrick went on to become the company’s CEO, and following this three top executives have resigned from their position. The information comes from sources said to be familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg.

Sony teams with Panasonic for 300GB optical disks – the slot lives on! – It’s unknown why, at the moment, the teams at Sony and Panasonic have decided they’d like to keep the standard-sized optical disk (CD-sized, that is) alive, but they’ve announced just that this morning. In an effort to create next-generation professional-use disks with capacities of at least 300 GB, these teams will join forces here and now. Their aim is to create this new media by the end of 2015.

New Official Comedy App Hits Spotify – If you thought Spotify was only about the music, think again. If you’re in the mood to catch a case of the giggles, the streaming service has just the thing for you.

Grand Theft Auto V screenshots show off the “fast life” in Los Santos – We’ve already seen a handful of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots in the past, and Rockstar Games is no stranger to teasing their fans with a constant downpour of such imagery. Today, we’re being treated with more of that, and these specifically focus on what Rockstar is calling “the fast life” in GTAV.

Off Topic (Sort of):

The Word from WordPress: Catching Up With Matt Mullenweg – If you glance at Wikipedia to determine what WordPress is, you might come away with the impression that it’s a tool for creating and maintaining a blog. It is. But that’s an increasingly insufficient way to describe it: 18.9 percent of the web now consists of sites that run on WordPress’s software, from blogs created by newbies to big-media operations with millions of readers. (Such as the site you’re reading right now.)

Australian Parliament urges citizens to bypass geo-locks on software – An Australian parliamentary committee released a report today encouraging Australian consumers to find lawful ways to bypass “geo-locks” on popular software from Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, and others. On average, Aussies pay 42 percent more for the same stuff as Americans.

You’ll soon be able to buy your own drone for $700 – 3D Robotics gave a sneak preview of a comparatively cheap consumer drone at an unmanned aircraft convention in San Francisco this week. The company’s new quadcopter, or four-rotor helicopter, can be controlled from a tablet running an Android flight system or other similar app. The as-yet-unnamed drone will cost about $700 and is aimed at an audience of hobbyists, even wedding photographers, who could attach a camera to the front and get sweeping shots from the sky.

Muzik smart headphones let audiophiles share on Facebook and Twitter – Headphones come in all shapes and sizes, yet offer more or less the same functionality. The folks behind Muzik aim to change this, announcing the soon-to-be-available smart headphones that allow users to natively share the song they’re listening to on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere.

Something to think about:

“Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.”

– John Maynard Keynes

Today’s Free Downloads:

Cyber-D’s Autodelete 3.13 – This program can automatically delete files in a specific folder that are older than the specified time. It checks the file dates by modification time. You can have it run on every Windows startup to delete old temp files, backups, webcam snapshots history, temporary internet files, etc…

VLC media player 2.0.8 – VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. It doesn’t need any external codec or program to work.

Tech firms squirm over their role in Prism surveillance – The disclosures about the National Security Agency’s massive global surveillance by Edward Snowden, the former information-technology contractor who’s now wanted by the U.S. government for treason, is hitting the U.S. high-tech industry hard as it tries to explain its involvement in the NSA data-collection program. (Explain what? Perhaps, explain why (in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave), not a single company individual (or collective individuals), had either the physical or emotional courage to stand up to what was clearly illegal and immoral activity. Better yet – don’t explain. I’ll wait for the mythical Hollywood movie version.)

Judge denies government’s bid to delay lawsuit to halt NSA metadata collection – A federal judge has denied the government’s request to delay what could turn out to be a major landmark case (ACLU v. Clapper) on the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass metadata collection program. In a complaint filed last month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked a judge to declare Verizon’s ongoing metadata collection and sharing to the NSA unconstitutional.

Scan, track, and control how apps access your personal data – That app is called Online Privacy Shield, and it’s a must-have for anyone seriously concerned about the privacy of their information. With a few taps, you’ll know who has access to the information you share on various social networking sites. With a few more taps, you can revoke that permission. It’s simple to use, effective, and ready to serve.

PornMD breaks down the world’s porn searches by keyword and region – The chart is easy to use. All you have to do is choose a region of the world from the top selection, and a map of that region will invoke. A list of the top ten most searched for porn keywords will be displayed for that larger region. If you hover your mouse of any of the regions within the overall area you selected — such as states or countries, depending on the landmass — you’ll get a breakdown of what the top ten most searched for porn keywords are for the smaller area. Be warned, some of the words are not safe for work.

The sounds of a sick PC: Listen to the noises that could mean bad news – Have you listened to your PC lately? I mean, really listened? If you’re lucky, your PC doesn’t have much to say. But if yours sounds like a box of pots and pans falling down a flight of wooden stairs or a helicopter trying desperately to take off, chances are good that it has a problem. We’ve gathered some of the noises worth worrying about: Just click the audio links in this article to hear a fan on the fritz, for example, or a hard drive headed for disaster.

11 free mobile apps for city life – City dwellers face challenges every day of their lives: Which subway lines are working, whether or not it’s worth trying to hail a cab at this corner and where the best ramen shop in the neighborhood might be hiding. A good app can make urban life a lot easier. We’ve sifted through a wealth of mobile apps out there to see which ones can best help you find transportation, food, housing and local events in your city, and found 11 useful ones — all free.

Hover Zoom – Hover Zoom is one of the best and most useful browser plugins in existence…provided you use the Chrome browser, as it is not available for anything else. It allows you to move your mouse over a small picture and instantly magnify it, without clicking or opening anything. This free extension from Romain Vallet works on many popular sites, including Facebook, Flickr, Reddit, and Twitter.

Security:

Stanford University hacked, becomes latest data breach victim – Yet more passwords need changing, as America’s prestigious Stanford University joins the long line of recent data breach victims. Although specific details remain scarce, an announcement from the university authorities urges all users, which may include staff and alumni as well as students, to ensure their details are checked and updated ASAP.

Man gets ransomware porn pop-up, goes to cops, gets arrested on child porn charges – A man from just outside of Washington, DC turned himself in to local police—with his computer in tow—after receiving a pop-up message from what he believed was an “FBI Warning” telling him to click to pay a fine online, or face an investigation. While specific details on the case are scant as of yet, it appears that the suspect here fell victim to a type of ransomware that has been proliferating for years now—raking in millions for the scammers behind it.

LinkedIn closes OAuth hole that could have let people tinker with your CV – A software developer identified by The Register as Richard Mitchell, based in the UK, earlier this week blogged about discovering that LinkedIn’s help site handed out private OAuth tokens for logged-in users. These supposedly secret OAuth tokens can be used to impersonate LinkedIn users and potentially get at their profile information via APIs.

Remembering Barnaby Jack – It’s said that each man’s death diminishes us all in some way. But some passings take a bigger piece than others. The death of Barnaby Jack is one of those, having left a major hole in the security community and let a lot of air out of the room.

16 Years of Black Hat: The Changing Face of Cyberattacks – This year marks the 16th anniversary of Black Hat, and to celebrate the security company Venafi released a report chronicling nearly two decades of cyberattacks. More than just a parade of malicious accomplishment, the Venafi report tells a remarkable story about the changing motivations and techniques of cyberattacks, and what it means for the future.

Company News:

Twitter Posts $55K of Promoted Tweets to Help Avoid Payroll Taxes – Here’s the gist: Twitter, headquartered in San Francisco, was considering moving its operations to nearby Brisbane a few years ago unless it received special exemption from the city to skirt a city payroll tax. The tax, a 1.5 percent fee on total employee compensation levied against companies with payroll greater than $250,000, included salaries, bonuses, and exercised stock options — and could have cost Twitter north of $20 million dollars over six years.

Oracle files lawsuit against companies offering illegal tech support – Oracle has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against two IT service providers, Maintech and Terix. According to the lawsuit, the two companies have provided illegal support for Oracle’s Solaris OS software, having encouraged customers to cancel their Oracle support subscriptions.

Apple’s Smartphone Market Share Slips – Apple’s share of the global smartphone market fell during the second quarter to its lowest level in four years, according to data released Friday.

Google to Glass Developers: Start Developing on Android SDK – Chomping at the bit to design your own Google Glass app? You’ll have to wait a little bit longer to get your hands on Google’s to-be-released Glass Development Kit (GDK), a software toolkit that will officially (and finally) allow developers to build apps that can run directly on Glass itself.

Games and Entertainment:

The best games of the year so far – These are the titles that we would recommend without reservation to anyone looking for something new to distract them from their dull and pointless lives. Check out the video for some sample gameplay, then read about what makes each game worthwhile below.

PS4 games will use 5.5GB of RAM out of 8GB, but there’s a catch – According to the report, the PS4 will allow games to work with 5.5GB of RAM. Furthermore, the operating system will have a dedicated 3.5GB of RAM. Yes, that would total 9GB. The breakdown is such that the OS will have 3.5GB of dedicated RAM, games will have 4.5GB dedicated, but games will be able to take 1GB from the OS when necessary, raising it to that 5.5GB figure.

The 30 Best iPhone Games – From casual match-three games to trivia to intense first-person shooters, check out our 30 best games for Apple’s iPhone.

Off Topic (Sort of):

So you call yourself a geek? – The NSA surveillance scandal and the passing of hacker Barnaby Jack are both reminders that the label “geek” has been hijacked by vast dull herds of consumer wannabes.

Terms and Conditions: A movie about privacy policies you’ll actually want to watch – The documentary, released last week, will particularly interest your smart (but less tech-savvy) friends who shrug at things like the most recent NSA metadata surveillance scandal. American technology law and policy can often feel too niche, despite the fact that the issues in question apply in some way to nearly everyone on the Internet, as American companies are so dominant online. But this film might just be the most fun and accessible way to learn about what’s been happening to all of us, online, over the last 15 years.

Astronaut controls robot on Earth from the ISS – An astronaut aboard the International Space Station used an extraterrestrial remote control system on Friday to maneuver a robot rover at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. In the test, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano used the rover to deploy a simulated radio telescope antenna on the Ames Roverscape, a sandy and rocky simulation of the lunar landscape that’s about the size of a football field.

Supertoy Teddy: a WiFi enabled natural talking teddy bear – If you’re one of the many who experience the first generation Furby toys in your childhood, you can stop cringing now. Supertoy Teddy is an attempt at Siri-style natural language communication inside a WiFi-enabled teddy bear.

Something to think about:

“Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.”

– Russell Baker

Today’s Free Downloads:

Identity Finder Home Edition 6.3.2 – Social security numbers, credit cards, bank accounts, passwords, and other highly sensitive personal information are sitting idly on your computer leaving you and your family exposed to identity theft. You may not be able to find all the places it’s hidden, but hackers and thieves know where to look. Identity Finder goes deep, searching the computer to locate and secure potentially dangerous data – even when you don’t know it exists.

AutoHotkey 1.1.11.02 – Automate almost anything: Send keystrokes & mouse clicks; launch programs / documents; work with the clipboard, registry, & soundcard settings. In addition to its automation features described below, AutoHotkey excels at hotkeys, able to make virtually any mouse/joystick button, keyboard key, or combination into a hotkey.

Foxit Reader – Foxit Reader is designed for a broad spectrum of users including enterprise and government organizations. Foxit Reader is fully customizable to meet any organization business objective and its small footprint makes it easy to deploy. It is also packed with features not available in competitor’s products. Foxit Foxit Reader’s small footprint makes easy to update and maintain.

Joe Linford, of Broadband Genie, highlights the growing technologies of 4G and Fibre broadband and suggests some of the potential benefits for helping businesses be more successful.

4G & Fibre optic broadband – what’s happening?

The successor to 3G – 4G, is essentially ultra-fast mobile broadband that utilises airwaves to send information from one internet enabled device to another. Once used by terrestrial television, the airwaves which were owned by the government, were auctioned off to phone networks by Ofcom, and are now starting to become available throughout the UK.

At the same time this is happening, superfast broadband is gradually making its way around the country. As a way of sending information, Fibre optic broadband allows users to access the internet, keep in contact and download information faster than ever before.

You can read more information about the above and check the availability of deals in your area by using Broadband Genie’s guides to 4G and Fibre broadband. But for now, let’s explore how these could have a positive impact on your business.

Are you ready?

Whereas many rural areas may still be waiting for some time, those in urban regions are finally starting to enjoy great broadband speeds. As well as a number of advantages for consumers, businesses are also starting to enjoy the benefits that come with a faster broadband connection.

As 4G and Fibre optic broadband bring advancements in the way businesses can operate, it’s vitally important to understand how your business can thrive and not be left behind in what has become a significant aspect of long term business success.

Connections speeds: While Fibre optic will dramatically improve speeds in the workplace, 4G will do the same for anyone on the move and in business, time is money. Working online is no different than working in a factory or retail and the quicker employees can operate, the better value for money you will get as a business owner; something that could lead to you gaining the advantage over your rivals, should they miss the boat.

File sharing: This is another area in whichbusinesses that rely heavily on the Internet will see significant advancements. As well as being able to file share much quicker within the workplace, workers will now be able to file share at home and on the move. As well as improving speeds, users will now have the freedom to file share when they want to and not have to wait until they are at work to complete tasks. This should allow for smoother running of many businesses.

Online collaboration: From instant messaging to online conference calling, both 4G and Fibre will open doors that have, until now, remained closed, thanks to online collaboration. Users within the office will be able to work far more effectively with others anywhere in the world. 4G users will also enjoy huge benefits, as restrictions that stop users from taking conference calls at a time and place that suit them will be removed. Whilst this is currently possible with 3G, the service is often poor and as such unviable.

It’s time:

The more your business relies on the Internet, the greater the emphasis you should be placing upon understanding and utilising 4G and Fibre optic. Many businesses are now making the transition to the Internet, with it playing an ever increasing role in the long term success of companies both small and large.

The door isn’t opening to just large businesses. As NBS points out, small businesses who have thus far been priced out of the market due to being unable to afford software applications, will be able to utilise the cloud more effectively as well, thus ensuring that they can compete with larger organisations

Neither 4G nor Fibre optic are available everywhere at present, so you may have to be a little patient in some areas. However, if it is and you haven’t taken the first steps, then maybe now is the time. You may be losing ground to your competitors.

European companies should stop sending data to the US, German privacy officials say – Due to the mass surveillance of communications by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), U.S. companies can no longer fulfill European requirements for the exchange of personal data, said Germany’s Conference of Data Protection Commissioners in a joint letter sent to German chancellor Angela Merkel that was published on Wednesday. The conference consists of the federal data protection commissioner and the data protection commissioners of the German states.

U.S. cloud firms suffer from NSA PRISM program – The effects of the PRISM disclosures have already begun to come into view. In a recent survey by the Cloud Security Alliance, a non-profit group with more than 48,000 individual members, 10 percent of officials at foreign companies said that they have cut ties with U.S. providers following the leaks, and 56 percent of foreign respondents say they are now hesitant to do business with U.S. firms.

Information Consumerism: The Price of Hypocrisy – For American spies, Big Data is like crack cocaine: just a few doses – and you can forget about mending your way and kicking the habit. Yes, there’s an initial illusion of grandeur and narcissistic omnipotence – just look at us, we could prevent another 9/11! – but a clearer, unmediated brain would surely notice that one’s judgment has been severely impaired. Prevent another 9/11? When two kids with extensive presence on social media can blow up a marathon in Boston? Really? All this data, all this sacrifice– and for what?

EFF: Forced Decryption Violates Fifth Amendment – The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an Amicus Brief to a United States District Court yesterday that could impact rulings around forced device decryption and whether that is an act of self-incrimination, and is protected by the Fifth Amendment.

CCleaner 4.04 – The überpopular utility software for finding and removing junk files updates with new support for Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11.

Google Chromecast review: Finally, Internet-to-TV streaming done right – When you consider the fact that the Chromecast includes a three-month Netflix credit, its actual cost comes out to 11 bucks ($35 minus $24 in Netflix savings). And when you consider how easily you could take the Chromecast with you on the go — to stream movies while traveling, share photos or videos at social gatherings, conduct presentations at conferences, and so on — its value and transformation potential is staggering.

Chromecast sells out as Google cancels Netflix promotion – Chromecast, the nifty $35 HDMI dongle from Google, was being offered alongside a free three months of Netflix promotion that had been offered on a limited basis. That promotion has already run out, with Google stating that the free service offer has been cancelled. Shortly after that, the Chromecast itself sold out entirely.

PsExec is a Windows power user’s best friend – Mark Russinovich of Microsoft (and formerly of Winternals) has a neat little freeware command line utility that effectively serves as the Windows equivalent of ssh on Linux, except that it has a whole lot more tricks. Not only are you able to issue commands remotely by IP address or hostname over a corporate intranet, you can also reset user passwords, specify which CPUs or cores should be used to operate a task, initiate remote file copies, and much more.

Finding Evil: Automating Autoruns Analysis – You can buy appliances to put in your network in an effort to find evil on systems in your enterpise. I know a wicked smart individual who develops one such system and I strongly recommend you check them out, especially if you can afford them. But let’s say you didn’t budget for one of these systems this year, there’s still something you can cobble together using Autoruns , Psexec , Cygwin and VirusTotal . It may not be as effective or capable as the system that rhymes with “beer,” but it’s going to be useful. Let’s get to it. (recommended by Aseem S.)

Microsoft gives Fresh Paint a fresh coat of… – Specifically, the new Fresh Paint includes watercolor paints, a new set of pencils, new high-end brushes and more realistic “art supplies” for your digital art studio. Fresh Paint isn’t as simple as it looks, Microsoft said; behind the scenes, an incredibly complex physics engine mimics the behavior of real paint, the company said.

Long-Range RFID Hacking Tool to be Released at Black Hat – A tool that enables a hacker or penetration tester to capture RFID card data from up to three feet away will be released next week at Black Hat. (There goes your card issuer’s guarantee that your card/s can only be read from mere inches away.)

Cybercriminals are using the Tor network to control their botnets – Malware writers are increasingly considering the Tor anonymity network as an option for hiding the real location of their command-and-control (C&C) servers, according to researchers from security firm ESET. The ESET researchers recently came across two botnet-type malware programs that use (C&C) servers operating as Tor “hidden services.”

Five indicted in massive hacking scheme – The men allegedly attacked the networks of several companies, including Nasdaq, 7-Eleven, JCP, Dow Jones and Hannaford, the DOJ said. Companies reported $300 million in losses from the attacks, the DOJ said in a press release.

DHS to set up $6 billion one-stop security shop for government agencies – A fund of up to $6 billion has been set aside by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to build a central repository of security tools and expertise for government use. The unclassified program is mainly aimed at civilian government, including federal, state and local level departments and agencies, but will be open to defense and intelligence agencies.

Game over for Zynga? Firm loses 25 percent of daily active users in one quarter – In its latest earnings statement filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Zynga reported the number of daily average users (DAU) dropped to 39 million in the second quarter of 2013—the lowest ever since the company began keeping track. Last quarter, the DAU fell to the then-lowest record, 52 million users. The fall to 39 million means that 25 percent of its daily user base stopped using Zynga products in just one quarter.

Games and Entertainment:

FEAR Online official, beta sign-ups happening now – The popular horror-themed first-person shooter series FEAR is back, and this time it’s going free-to-play. Aeria Games has announced FEAR Online, an online, free-to-play approach of Monolith’s horror FPS series. FEAR Online will take the singleplayer aspect of the game and turn it into an online multiplayer experience.

Firefall is a free-to-play shooter you should play—with friends – Firefall is a PC shooter, currently in open beta. There are points to capture, bases to defend, and all manner of guns to ogle over. But it’s also an MMO. Events and quests spawn regularly, but it’s up to you to hike over to them before your content-hungry peers gobble up the foes, and any prizes.

Call of Duty: Ghosts Wii U version officially confirmed – It’s been up in the air for a while whether or not we’d see Call of Duty: Ghosts make its way to the Wii U. Activision didn’t initially announce Wii U support when it first made the game official, and executive producer Mark Rubin pretty much hinted to the fact that we would see a Wii U version, but now it’s official.

Vacation locations: How to make a story map with photos, text, map – Want to share vacation photos to show just where you’ve been — and tell something about each one? Or perhaps showcase pictures taken close to home on a map? There’s a technique that newsroom developers use to combine images, videos and maps without having to code from scratch, thanks to Esri’s free story maps templates. While the workflow isn’t very intuitive, it turns out that story maps are quite easy to create if you know the steps. Here’s how.

WikiLeaks Party officially launches in Australia, Assange to run for senate – On Thursday, Julian Assange, the embattled WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for over a year, formally announced the launch of his WikiLeaks Party. The process to get the party registered has been ongoing since December 2012. Assange himself will be a candidate for senate, hoping to represent the state of Victoria.

First 3D printed rifle fired successfully in Canada – Meet the Grizzly, a functional, 3D-printed 22 caliber rifle that was designed and assembled in Canada. Think of it as a foreign cousin of Defense Distributed’s Liberator that’s in to flannel and hunting.…

Something to think about:

“The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

Today’s Free Downloads:

CCleaner Portable 4.04.4197 – CCleaner Portable is the number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. This is the portable version, unzip anywhere and run it.

Congress nearly shuts down NSA phone dragnet, in sudden 205-217 vote – “While ultimately not successful, this vote showed that more than 200 members of Congress—including the author of the Patriot Act—oppose these programs,” said David Segal of Demand Progress in an e-mailed statement. “These programs barely survived after a full court lobbying campaign by the White House, the Intelligence community, and the NSA proper. Today’s vote shows that the tide is turning.” “This is a great first step. It’s the best vote we’ve ever had on the Patriot Act,” an ACLU lobbyist told The Guardian. It was a “sea change” in how Congress views bulk surveillance, she said, and it will at least force more privacy protections into a forthcoming intelligence authorization bill.

MP behind UK internet porn filter hacked, accuses blogger who reported it – Yesterday MP Claire Perry’s website was hacked. The current advisor to the British Prime Minister on UK Internet filtering laws accused a blogger who reported it of the deed, in threats revealing she doesn’t know how links or websites work. (Just one more example of how the “Political Pigs” are running on empty while attempting to exercise control over your right to access data of your choosing.)

Visualized: The Shady Behavior of Web Services – Harry Brignull, a user experience designer and consultant, has put together a great post showing all the ways that websites try to dupe you into signing up for things you don’t want. The blog post does a fine job of encapsulating the idea, allowing you to seethe as you scroll through example after example of shady sign-up forms. We see companies automatically enrolling people in expensive membership programs, refusing to let them escape without filling out a detailed explanation form and using double negatives to ensnare people in e-mail marketing.

The Best Free Firewalls – Firewall protection has been built into Windows since the introduction of Windows XP in 2001, so paying for a third-party firewall utility doesn’t make a lot of sense. On the other hand, the built-in Windows firewall specifically protects your system from outside attacks, not from local programs abusing your network connection. For two-way firewall protection, you do need more than Windows alone can offer. Fortunately there are a number of free personal firewalls available to handle that task.

New “Chromecast,” a $35 HDMI dongle to get video streams to your TV – Google announced a new device, dubbed Chromecast, at a press event in San Francisco today. The tiny dongle plugs into an HDMI input on a TV and connects to Wi-Fi, allowing users to stream video directly to their TVs from other devices—without requiring matching operating systems. Interfaces will now present a “cast” button that when clicked will send the video from a PC, tablet, or smartphone to the television. Playback can then be controlled by the device sending the video.

Google announces a quad-core, 1080p Nexus 7 – A sharper display, wireless charging, quad-core processor, and rear-facing camera: Google’s 2013 edition of the Nexus 7 proves you can get plenty of bang for your buck, even though its latest entry in the budget tablet market now exceeds that magical $199 price point.

10 Most Common Printer Problems Solved – Printers can present a bewildering range of problems. Fortunately, many of them can be resolved by consumers armed with a bit of knowledge. Here are solutions to some of the most common issues.

Clownfish for Skype – Clownfish is a translator that integrates itself into Skype and instantly translates every chat message said between you and the other person. The speed is admirable, but the accuracy less so. When I tested it with my wife, who is German, she told me the German translations were not that great.

Security:

‘Digital carjackers’ are the worst sort of backseat drivers – In the video below, a pair of automotive hackers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, demonstrate to a Forbes staff reporter how they’re able to spoof fuel levels and vehicle speeds to display incorrect data on the dashboard, trigger the precollision system, take limited control of the electronic power steering system, honk the horn, tug at the driver with the seat belts, and even deactivate the brakes. Scary stuff.

Wireless gadgetry in cars to grow 41% in next 4 years – Remember when you thought it was cool your car had a USB socket? Well, geezer, automotive infortainment is going to leave you behind and make someone else really rich. That’s right, the blue screen of death will eventually mean, well, the blue screen of death.

Internet Explorer Protects Your Privacy Better than Chrome. Really! – You can buy dozens of security products designed to protect your online privacy in dozens of different ways. Really, though, when it comes down to it, shouldn’t privacy protection be built right into the browser? Truth to tell, the major browsers all have varying degrees of privacy protection built in, but some handle it better than others. A recent report from NSS Labs details the differences.

SIM card vulnerabilities easy to fix, researcher says – A pair of severe security problems in millions of SIM cards should be easy for operators to fix, according to the German security researcher who found the issues. Operators and SIM card vendors haven’t played the blame game and are working on fixes.

Google Play Games app now available – The same app will come pre-loaded on the newly announced Nexus 7 tablet, and will serve as a central hub of sorts for viewing game achievements, leaderboards, checking out what friends are playing, and all that good stuff.

Comixology leads comic-publishing resurgence – In a surprisingly short time, the comic world seems to have stopped worrying and started loving digital technology. It turns out that comic shops are doing okay. In an industry that never had a Borders or a Tower Records, the small comic shops with good communities have survived and even thrived, rather than being destroyed by competition from digital comics.

Google Play gets textbook category as Google dives deep into education – More and more tech companies are showing interest in education and helping out students by offering services and features to assist them during their studies. After all, the youth are the future. Google thinks so too and has introduced a textbooks category in Google Play where students can rent and buy digital textbooks.

Something to think about:

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith

Today’s Free Downloads:

StreamWriter 4.9.0.0 – StreamWriter is a free internet-radio application. streamWriter will record as many streams as you want at the same time (MP3/AAC), automatically record a wishlist’s song when it’s playing on a stream, schedule recordings, apply effects to recorded songs and more.

Survey Finds Concern with Government Access to Information – The CSA today also published the results of its recent survey on government access to information. The survey received almost 500 responses from CSA members around the world. It found that 56% of non-US residents were now less likely to use US-based cloud providers, in light of recent revelations about government access to customer information. An overwhelming 90% of respondents said that companies who have been subpoenaed through provisions of the Patriot Act should be able to publish summary information about the amount of responses they have made.

US lawmakers to vote on data mining – US legislators are expected to vote on whether to halt phone and internet data mining not related to terror suspects, a move opposed by the White House. (These so called “lawmakers” aren’t in the least bit interested in securing your “constitutional rights” – this is about $$$. More particularly, the threat of lost business opportunities in markets in which alternatives to U.S. Cyber services exist. Obama stays the course and continues to display his cyber-dummy stance.)

11 Simple Ways to Protect Your Privacy – Your personal information, including your email address, phone number and social security number, is worth a lot of money to legitimate businesses and bad guys alike. The bad guys just want to steal from you. Companies want to know as much about you as possible so they can sell you more products and services or serve you ads that are highly relevant to your demographics and preferences. So take these simple steps to protect your valuable personal information.

Five must-have browser security add-ons – Not all browsers are created equal. Some do a much better job at securing your connectivity and data than others. The browsers you more actively trust are those that allow the addition of extensions (or add-ons) to help enhance the security of your time online. But of the myriad of add-ons, which ones are the “must-haves” among the crowd? I have tracked down the five top add-ons that I feel are most necessary for a safe web-centric experience.

What’s My Computer Doing? – Don’t look so smug. Do you honestly know everything that is going on under the hood of your perhaps not-so-smoothly running computer?

Getting started with Flipboard on the Web – Flipboard, the app that lets you tap and flip your way through digital magazines on smartphones and tablets, has come to laptops and desktops. You can now access your Flipboard account from a Web browser, complete with the flip animation — for better or worse. You can also use the Web app to create your own magazines to clip articles for later viewing via a bookmarklet.

Create a Windows 8.1 Preview dual-boot setup on your Windows XP system – Creating a dual-boot configuration by installing Windows 8.1 Preview on a partition of your existing hard disk will be a big advantage as you begin your experimentation. To begin with, you can investigate Windows 8.1, but when you need to get some work done, you can boot back into Windows XP. Then, when you are done experimenting, you can easily undo the dual-boot configuration.

OpenOffice 4.0 arrives – It may be trailing LibreOffice, but OpenOffice is still alive and kicking — now with better Microsoft Office Open XML support.

Push your PC’s productivity with better, faster gear – You thought your PC was fine. It’s not that old, and you make sure it’s not loaded with bloatware or other software-level performance drags. And yet it still seems to wheeze as it boots up each morning, and applications take forever to launch. Your components could be to blame—hardware that’s due for an upgrade. Setting up a speedier system could be as simple as updating your USB ports with an external dock, or you could step up to speedier storage. Read on to find out how you can make your PC more productive.

Build your own supercomputer: First $99 Parallella boards ship – Linux is the top supercomputer operating system. But while you can build your own Linux supercomputer using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, even with just Raspberry Pi boards, these don’t natively support massively parallel computing — the cornerstone of modern supercomputing. That’s where Adapteva, with its $99 Parallella parallel processing single-board supercomputer, comes in.

Icky or Not, New Ads Make Gmail Worse – Fortunately, the new Gmail inbox isn’t mandatory. You can get rid of it by clicking the gear icon on the top-right corner of the screen and going to “Configure Inbox.” From there, you can deselect all the boxes except “Primary” to go back to the old inbox. You can also just deselect “Promotions” if you like the new inbox sorting but don’t want to see the new ads.

Security:

Symantec spots two Android apps using ‘master key’ vulnerability – Hackers are now using a critical vulnerability in Android to modify legitimate smartphone applications, putting users at risk of being spied on. Security vendor Symantec wrote on Tuesday that it found two applications being distributed in Chinese Android marketplaces that have employed the “master key” vulnerabilities discovered earlier this month.

How to spot and avoid Facebook ‘Like’ scams – When you click or press the Like button, you may be disclosing more about yourself than you imagine. You may also be contributing to the bank accounts of Internet scammers.

Syrian Electronic Army hacked Tango, swiped user data – TangoMe Inc., the company behind Tango, confirmed the breach on its Twitter account, saying that it “experienced a cyber intrusion that resulted in unauthorized access to some data.” The company went on to state that it is in the process of improving its security system. This came after the Syrian Electronic Army posted screenshots as proof of their hacking endeavors.

Company News:

iPod sales down 31% from last year, gets no mention from Apple – We’ve heard a lot of numbers from Apple today, including record iPhone sales for the third quarter, as well as iPad and Mac sales that were slightly down, but still better than expected by the company. However, what didn’t get mentioned at all in the press release or the earnings call was how well the iPod is doing.

LinkedIn selling more marketing content into users’ feeds – The marketing content will be visible on desktop PCs as well as on smartphones and tablet devices, and will clearly be marked “sponsored,” appearing in the member’s homepage feed along with organic posts from their network and the companies that they already follow.

Foursquare Launches Self-Serve Ads for Small Businesses – The location-sharing social network on Tuesday launched self-serve ads, a new service designed to help small businesses reach potential customers. Foursquare is rolling out the new service to “a few thousand local businesses” today, before opening it up more broadly over the coming months.

Games and Entertainment:

Oculus Rift may be headed to smartphones – Oculus Rift, which made its Kickstarter debut last summer, can best be described as a high field of view (FOV), low-latency, consumer-priced virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD). According to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, the company is excited about the possibility of plugging the upcoming headset “right into a next-gen cellphone.”

Poker Holdem No Limit training software – Improve your game and test new strategies, by playing against up to 9 computer opponents having different playing styles. Highly configurable blinds structure using the open source poker-eval library for hand simulations, with a custom-built AI works as a standalone software, no need for an internet connection.

Riptide GP 2 Review – The developers at Vector Unit have this week unveiled Riptide GP 2 for the public, having created the original well over a year ago to waves of Android devices that still continue to jetski forth with this classic today.

Top 5: iOS Match Three Games – Bored and looking for fun games to pass the time? Try one of these match three games and you’ll be sure to get addicted.

The Walking Dead Gets No Emmy Respect – Zombies may be swarming the earth, but one of the only places they haven’t taken over is with the major award ceremonies. It’s great to see that two of the hottest shows on TV right now are Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. They’re both genre shows, and thankfully they’re also playing a big hand in finally bringing reality TV to an end.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Violence Is the Answer – It is far past midnight on July 14th. Passionate cries of protest can be heard through the night air outside the Florida State Capitol. Bright blue and shocking red lights flash over the grass and into my eyes now as heavy as the damp air and my heart at the news. The trial has passed, the evidence presented, a vicious fight wrought and the verdict has come down.

Vibrating bike seats!? Bicycling not on the list of banned pornographic pastimes – Apparently, in Britain, there is a sex store that sells a vibrating bicycle seat because, that is the only way anyone will ever, ever get pleasure from sitting on a bicycle seat. Bicycle seats suck. Bad choice of words, but now they massage the nether regions and provide bliss. The world teeters on the edge of an ironic abyss.

Grabbers Official Trailer #1 – Oh the irony, aliens invade the earth, their only weakness is alcohol and – they land in Ireland! (suggested by Michael F.)

Self-driving cars could create 1GB of data a second – Self-driving cars, which some experts have predicted will be readily available within five years, will come with a myriad of sensors creating machine-to-machine data at the rate of 1GB a second, according to one strategist.

Something to think about:

“We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.”

– Talmud

Today’s Free Downloads:

OpenOffice.org – OpenOffice.org is a free, Open Source alternative to MS Office with a Word compatible word processor, a complete Excel compatible spread sheet program and a Power Point like presentation software and drawing program and also allows to save to PDF file. In addition, OpenOffice.org offers enhanced printing capabilities and options for direct connection with external email programs as well as form-letter management to send letters to addresses from a database.

BitDefender Free Edition 1.0.18 – BitDefender Free Edition uses the same ICSA Labs certified scanning engines found in other BitDefender products, allowing you to enjoy basic virus protection for no cost at all. This free antivirus software download is an on-demand virus scanner, which is best used in a system recovery or forensics role.

SmoothDraw 4.0.1 – SmoothDraw is an easy natural painting and digital free-hand drawing software that can produce high quality pictures. Support many kinds of brushes (pen, pencil, dry media, airbrush, bristle brush, image hose, etc.), retouch tools, layers, image adjustment, and many effects… Works great with tablets and Tablet PC.

Blogroll

Daves Computer Tips
Our goal is, and always has been, “To become the best source of easy to understand, plain English computer and tech information on the internet while helping others to better understand computers and technology.”

Manitoulin Island Web Design
Pat Keenan here, at your service, but call me POKO – I’m a nighthawk staying up until all hours so if you need to call, kindly do so after 11AM.

Paul Andrew Russell ~ poet
An excellent poetry site written by my good friend. If you’re looking for prose to ponder then, drop in on Paul.

What's On My PC
The intent of this blog is to share my knowledge base of computers, software, gadgets and information technology in terms that is presentable and understandable to ALL; and at the same time feed my obsession for information technology by learning from oth